notes for 2nd radical mapping class

Notes for 2^nd radical mapping class (sorry for the terrible spelling errors)

Intros

Arnoldas: excited to learn, communicate to a larger audience what’s not represented, challenge conventional frameworks; had talked about immigrant rights with someone earlier—the history of the Chicano movement; introduced the Minnesota Radical History zine—maybe we can have pdfs or links on our website to information about how the U is connected to local history and overlapping communities—it is never self-enclosed

Gus: Film guy, maybe do some film stuff for the project

Anders: a former PSEO student, currently going through the loops of freshman orientation at the U. This process could be useful for the scope of the class

Quin (sp?): History major at the U—did previous work on the history of the U, 1960s-ear protests, and research on the structural character of the West Bank; interested in history and dynamics of neighborhoods—after 9/11 immigration and the effect it has had on Cedar-Riverside, cab drivers, etc. and the ethnic-migratory history of surrounding neighborhoods

Marie (sp?): wants to have a focus group—look at the beginning of school-year, have a product to hand out and a website to drill down, like an “Activist Guide”—look at (Im)moral Hall, ’03 sit-in compared to ’07 arrests over GC sit-ins—what happened during those years? Look at Folwell and 60’s anti-war demonstrations, Gateway/scholar’s walk—McNamera is a private building, not owned by the U. What does this mean?

David: interested in looking at the technocratic nature of GIS—and the appropriation of GIS software for productive ends

Yonna (sp?): interested in mental maps; focus on higher education, study abroad, international students, and how these subgroups play into the radical mapping of the U. Who benefits from the internationalization of the U?

Ahmed: engineering background; got involved in radical outlook of the U during the fall strike; TA’s are not a factory, but are commonly treated like one—highly corporatized, lack of care for workers’ wellbeing; interested in exploring power struggles inherent in the U’s structure, administration policies and research, and departmental imbalance

Leslie: Works for the Minnesota Historical Society, sees a difference between activism and “community groups” and “non-profits”; interested in subverting dominant paradigm, with close attention paid to “deconstructive” vs. “constructive” emphasis; wants to synthesize theory with action—create a mapifesto of sorts, explaining our own representational mapping process, setting a strong example of what a radical map is and looks like; data is already in the process of being collected by all sorts of groups—we could piggyback on other research work being done, creating an effective layered history of campus

Emily: graduated last year from the U; began to open up to the substance of the land and break conceptual patterns through an orienteering class she took at the U; interested in the strange underbelly of the U—abandoned parts of campus, decrepit tunnels, etc.; we should do some orienteering of our own—we think we understand where we are, but how do we triangulate; maybe do a treasure hunt—Minnesota as topography; maps can be dangerous, we can harness this power and use it for productive and dangerous purposes

Tom: works at the U, here to learn about the entire process of radical map-making

Isaac: likes the idea of the dangerous map; interested in an mp3-guided walking-tour of campus and generally building our own maps; what buildings are being destroyed, what buildings are being built up?

GIS: Geographic Information Systems

Most is done in desktop mapping

Neogeography—all mash-ups

Since 1969, U of M created 1^st GIS map—for about 40 years people have been creating data with which to map MN; neogeography is not taking advantage of this wealth of data

Coming together of Science (clunky, dry, analytical) and neogeography (sexy, pretty aesthetic, free from science tropes); Google Earth is changing all that; pulling in old data sets: debate over whether or not Google Earth is neogeography

Old GIS was done on desktop–$1000s to operate, inaccessible to most people; neogeography is all web-based, mostly open-source—open to almost anyone

ESRI: Environmental Services Research Institute

Open source GIS—mapserver foundation—Steve Lime (sp?), a DNR guy, alum and current teacher at the U. True North—4^th-10^th grade level technology

GIS potentials:

1) Ability to overlay multiple layers of maps

2) Ability to link locations o fmaps to information on that location—pull different data from all different sources, utilize data sources that already exist (cessions and treaties, e.g.)

www.mnhs.org/truenorth

Creative cartography (science of map-making): U of N. Carolina offers exemplary map

Grass—open source GIS

What is a map? Representation of special (and temporal) data; three kinds:

1) reference

2) thematic (population densities in an area, e.g.)

3) mental (conceptualizing space)

Maps are a simplification of reality, selective representation of data, based on subjective choices of people, decided by whoever makes the map. Earth is a Geoid—some projections preserve integrity of angle, area, etc.—depending upon what the cartographer is mapping, what interests she’s trying to serve (political foundation of maps)

Color—has importance in determining a hierarchy of data (darker and darker shades of red has different connotations than darker and darker shades of green to correspond to data categories, e.g. races of people)

Radical mapping: challenge the representations of space we see reinforced ever day; every cartographer has a choice in reinforcing what it is they reinforce

Geocoding: like mapquest, gathers cultural knowledge—representations of vs. representations for

www.colorbrewer.org– color blindness and ways to see things

larger project for the class: disorientation guide in form of booklet or zine; what is the priority, and what is realistic?

Who is the audience? Incoming students, surrounding communities; create something that helps break the spell that says the present situation is how it always has been and how it will always be, connecting to past and to present overlapping communities, practical-use guide that challenges real relationships, exposing the political reasons for not grounding people and not allowing space for people to map their own genealogies and geographies—there are multiple views of a single place and a single time.

This project could be the genesis for a grant…